Board 8 > Para watches and ranks every SGDQ '22 run

(+) Yeah! (+)

I haven't watched even a single second of SGDQ 2022 this year. I am going to watch every single second of it and talk about every run.

why

Normally, our family has a vacation over the week of July 4th. This has an annoying habit of coinciding with SGDQ, which I mostly missed last year - I watched some of it but not a lot. This year, our vacation was moved back a week to the week before July 4th, which made me happy, because I thought I would be able to watch SGDQ... alas, SGDQ also didn't take place the week of July 4th this year, but the week before. I didn't want to sit around on my ass scheduling my vacation around people playing video games online, and my phone's battery basically waves the white flag the moment I open Twitch, so I abstained from the event completely.

But now I'm thirsty for some GDQ. Everyone else who watched is worn out of it by now but I'm totally fresh and ready to watch some speedruns. I won't get the full GDQ experience of watching dumb prize segments or sitting around listening to donations waiting for the next run, but I will watch the runs themselves.

are you sure about this

No, but I've done it before. I did it for like AGDQ 16 I think? I think I tried to do it for SGDQ 16 after that but I ran out of steam and didn't finish.

aren't you doing another list right now

Yeah, I'll work on them at the same time. That one requires me to think about what I'm writing more whereas this mostly just requires me to watch and take a few notes. I need to strike while the iron's hot on this list, so I'm not gonna wait around so that I finish the other one.

Runs I might skip because I don't want to be spoiled on the game:

Kirby and the Forgotten Land - I am playing this game right now! I'm through the third world, so... probably about halfway, maybe a bit less, I guess? I may use the time-honored GDQ tactic of 'stalling' since this one's early - or maybe I'll skip it and come back to it once I've beaten the game. I would really like to watch this one so I will probably find a way to fit it in.

Omori - Spoilers for my goty list, but I didn't finish this. I wasn't enjoying it, but a lot of people swear by this game a lot, so I'm not sure if I should leave this one and come back to it someday - on the other hand, if I wasn't enjoying the game, I might not feel compelled to go back to it anyway, and seeing this run might be the only thing that gets me interested in it again, maybe I'll be more interested in the game after that. I would like advice on this - if you played Omori tell me what you think.

Super Mario Odyssey - I've completed this game, but I didn't do everything. That was a while ago, and I think I'm over it, so I'll probably just watch and see what I missed.

Tunic - A very new game! I want to probably buy this for the Steam summer sale, so maybe I'll try to blow through it by the time I get to this point in the marathon. I have no idea how long it'll take me to get through the marathon up to this point, so we'll see if I need to stall, or delay this one, or what.

Celeste - I haven't played the DLC. I am sure that I can just do it sometime before I watch this run, so I'm not worried about this.

Control - This one will be another game-time decision like Tunic. I already own this game and it's been on my to-play list for a while, it's just a matter of sitting down and doing it, which I will. I have no idea how long it is, but I can probably put this one away before I get here. Kirby, Tunic, and Control will be my major projects to get out of the way for this list.

Elden Ring - This one is at the very end, and I have no idea what I intend to do about it. I want to play Elden Ring unspoiled, so I probably will do that before this, and I have no idea yet if I intend to beat Elden Ring or not because I'm not even sure I'll like the game. We'll see.

Every other game is either one I've played/beaten, one I don't particularly care about, or one I've never heard of, so they're all on the table. If I see a game that I suddenly really want to play, I might stop the run and play it or something, we'll see how it goes.

Okay, that's it. I dunno when I'll start watching the first game but it'll be sometime soon. I just wanted to get the topic up to get me started.

Get hype!

thank you i felt bad for forgetting about it the entire week and only watching one run so this will be epic

I'm guessing Super Mario Sunshine is either going to be very high or very low.

Aw yeah this'll be fun!

Underleveled posted...

I'm guessing Super Mario Sunshine is either going to be very high or very low.

Para is much nicer than me so maybe they'll be more generous, but this is a bottom tier one for me. Especially considering how excited I was going into it. But yeah, could see bottom ten or top ten.

I'll read the comments and probably not watch any more than I already did when it was live.

Suprak the Stud posted...

Para is much nicer than me

I am aware of the circumstances of that run, and I think I'll be happy to test your theory

Definitely tagging.

Tag

This is very ambitious. Godspeed

Tagg!

FNAF run let's go baby

Tag

tag

Tag! There are a few I'm very interested in seeing your reactions to

Tunic is absolutely a game you should play yourself before watching someone else do it (think like Outer Wilds). Control is like 20 hours or something, not too long, I haven't played the DLCs but idk if a SGDQ run would include them. And yeah, try to play the Celeste DLC before its run too, it took me a very long time to get through but I'm not good at games lol.

WazzupGenius00 posted...

FNAF run let's go baby

Spoilering to not sway Para ahead of time; RE: the FNAF run:
This run should not have made it. Its donation quota passed without being met and they stalled for it, and when it was run, it was not very entertaining and the runner turned the brightness way up to see in the dark. Also, the FNAF creator is a hack.

andylt posted...

Tunic is absolutely a game you should play yourself before watching someone else do it (think like Outer Wilds). Control is like 20 hours or something, not too long, I haven't played the DLCs but idk if a SGDQ run would include them. And yeah, try to play the Celeste DLC before its run too, it took me a very long time to get through but I'm not good at games lol.

While true, tunic is a bad game so I wouldnt worry about it.

#ResidentTunicHater.

Anyways glad you are doing this because I like catching the good runs and its hard to know which ones those are!

tracking this topic because I want recommendations on what to watch and I value and respect Para's opinions

good luck. lotta stinkers this year

tag

Vice City gonna hit you in the feels

personally i feel like the tunic run is so far removed from the actual experience of playing the game itself that it probably wouldn't ruin the experience of playing the game.

although i will say tunic was fun but i hated some of the design choices

Though Im biased, I think TheRetroRunners Ninja Gaiden run was amazing

Let's get this show on the road.

I'm mostly skipping downtime in between games (unless I decide to just let it run for background noise for a bit) but for the time being - until I get bored of it - I'll be watching interviews and prize segments. And I wanted to get off my GDQ watching right, so I decided to watch the whole pre-show to get in the mood.

- The hosting team here is great - I love these lovable dorks. adef steals the show here though - his comedy bits are legitimately funny (one of the rare people who is actually funny when he's trying to do comedy) and every delivery he does is solid gold. I loved the cutaway of him sprinting through the parking lot to get ketchup packets from McDonald's. I hope he replaces SpikeVegeta forever (sorry Spike).

- The cut to Shout holding a Mareep was also great. I want that Mareep.

- I admire the bit they did with people racing using goofy speedrunning moves but it went on a bit long.

- It's funny to hear them hyping up runs knowing that some of them go awry in the future - I'm aware that people didn't like FNAF and Emerald Randomizer went hella over estimate.

- Love the MSF representative here not dancing around the political issues of the day here - they're doing work in Ukraine, they're putting vaccines in arms, and yes, abortion is part of healthcare. That last one was particularly pointed.

Okay, actual runs now.

Shadow of the Colossus

I briefly played Shadow of the Colossus once a long time ago - I think I beat like four or five of the bosses and didn't play the rest. It's a good game, but it's not really 'my thing'. I admire the design of the game and the design of the bosses and such but it's a game I would rather watch someone else play than play myself. So this run is perfect!

I don't think I've ever seen a speedrun of this game before because I honestly had no idea that it had a time trial mode, and I don't think I've seen some of these later game colossuses before, so this a new experience for me, at least I think. It's a good one! I liked this run a lot and it made for a really high energy run to start off the marathon. It's all killer, no filler; getting rid of all the explory parts of SotC and getting right to the meat keeps the pacing of this one brisk and entertaining throughout.

- I love the props of the whiteboard and the giant dice here. They're fun! The concept of fighting all the bosses in a random order is good and adds a little extra spice to this run. I smiled every time the camera zoomed in on the whiteboard - it's so amusingly low-tech.

- Horse pets were the donation gimmick of this run and I enjoyed it dearly. Everyone counting while the runner gently pats a horse is great. (I had no idea until now that Agro was a girl btw)

- I appreciate this game's commitment to designing bosses with butt ladders to grab onto.

- Some cool skips in this run though they sadly didn't all go off without a hitch. I enjoyed the Gaius jump, aka "Space Jam." I've played enough of this game to be impressed by the number of ways you can send Wander flying up to the exact spot you need to be.

- Also loved dropping a torch off the edge and getting sent flying by a colossus trying to kill itself.

- "Foxy, just so you know, you're my beardy boy." "Thank you. I wear it with uh... it's pride."

- The jump stab, or the sexy slash as they like to call it. I'm going to document every instance of a stupid tech name.

- Pathing through all the 16th colossus's missiles were cool - I like how they just kinda had a route devised that happens to make every missile miss slightly.

- That's never happened before x1

- I was slightly worried about the promised ukulele duet at the end of this run, but I needn't have been. It was fire. Absolute banger.

- Sent why are you wearing your mask weird.

Sonic Generations

Never played this game, didn't know that the 3DS version was different from the others. I have sort of a muted relationship with Sonic. None of the Sonic games are really among my favorites and I didn't grow up with them as a nostalgic thing. Sonic speedruns are hit or miss for me - the best ones are really great, but sometimes it's hard to really appreciate the action in them.

As far as Sonic games go, I found this run a little bit on the dull side. The action in the modern levels was pretty good, but the classic levels just felt kind of wrong. Way, WAY too many autoscrollers in this game, and that unfortunately included many of the bosses. Not the most cleanly executed run either, which didn't help. The commentary was okay, but a bit of a step down from SotC. I'd skip this one unless you're just a huge Sonic fan and you'll watch any Sonic game. I just didn't find a lot to latch onto here.

- BIG THE CAT! BIG THE CAT! BIG THE CAT! Big the Cat was a big meme throughout this run despite the fact that he does not appear in this game. I appreciate this.

- I know the special stages make for good donation fodder and all but it just really sucks to run a game with this many absolutely brutally dull autoscrollers. Other Sonic games have this problem too. The only good thing is that Sonic's run cycle at the start of them is fucking hilarious.

- The Big Arms theme was cruelly cut short by one of the only bosses that you COULD beat quickly in this game.

- We got a mention of orbs in this one, which makes the first time I think we've had a standard GDQ meme trotted out. I guess it's been three years since we've had an audience, so there's a pretty large gap in time since the last time anyone had anything to meme. I'm curious to see going forward if the old standard memes have dropped off a little bit.

- The music in that one water level sounds like Louie Louie and I can't get over it.

- I don't have a lot more to say about this run - I tuned a lot of it out. I ended up focusing on weird shit. Like, what's up with the houseplant? I get that they're all in armchairs in order to create social distancing but why the office vibe?

WarioWare: Touched!

Hey, it's a game I know. Well, I knew it, anyway - it's been a hot 15 years or so since I've last played it, so it's nearly all unfamiliar to me by this point. This is apparently the first time a WarioWare game has been run as a GDQ, which is simultaneously surprising because the series is pretty high profile, and not at all surprising because there isn't a lot of good speed tech and it's hard to speed up the game.

Shasta certainly tries his best to. The boss games work out decently for saving some time, but any time he saves off of the microgames that he can save time on (ones with the long timer, or ones you can intentionally fail) he probably lost most of it due to unintentional pausing. Ah well. I think a WarioWare run is both good and bad for GDQ viewing. On the plus side, the sheer anarchy of the game means there's ALWAYS something interesting on screen at all times, so it captivates the attention easily. On the minus side, there isn't really a lot of interesting speed tech to be seen here, so it just kind of feels like a very fast longplay of the game, not really anything special. I enjoyed it well enough, but it's hard to say if it lends itself well to the format.

- The format for WarioWare, explained: "As you can see here, stuff is happening, a lot of... a lot of wild zaniness, really all you gotta do is when the microgame pops up you gotta be as fast as you can." Yeah, that sounds about right.

- "Since we're not on couches, this is actually armchair commentary, so we're here to point out all your mistakes."

- Shasta is a charismatic runner, but he's really speaking a mile a minute here and I feel like I wouldn't understand a lot of his explanations if I didn't know the game well.

- "Imagine a bus. Anyone know what a bus is?" "I'm from America, I don't know what public transit is."

- I know Ashley's theme is the one true autoscroller of this run, but don't do donations over it! That's just blasphemy!

- "In my defense, this game is sensory overload incarnate."

- "They don't call me clutch masta Shasta for nothin'. They also don't call me that."

- I can't recall if this is the first time I've seen someone use the microphone to control a game at GDQ, but it's certainly a rarity. Taking off the mask made me realize that all of the commentary so far has been a bit muffled, but it's actually for the better because it takes the edge off some of the sharper sounds.

- I think since this run feels so much like a longplay anyway, I'd rather just see all the cutscenes, since they're pretty entertaining in a WarioWare game. It makes sense to skip them playing fast as possible, but I think we're past the point of worrying about that in GDQ.

- This run makes me think about how much I'd like to see Get It Together at GDQ. That one seems like a more interesting speed game, since games end as soon as you beat them most of the time, and character selections means there's some actual strategy in terms of which characters you can win with fastest. (This run also makes me think about how we'll NEVER see Rhythm Heaven at a GDQ.)

Rankings! I reserve the right to change the tiers or the rankings at any time.

---Highly Recommended---
---Recommended---
Shadow of the Colossus
---Maybe Recommended---
WarioWare: Touched!
---Not Recommended---
Sonic Generations

For what it's worth, I still enjoyed the Emerald rando.

Isquen posted...

For what it's worth, I still enjoyed the Emerald rando.

Oh yeah I'm still looking forward to it, didn't mean to imply the run was bad, just that it was mildly cursed

We just had a run deleted from the GDQ YouTube channel because of confirmed cheating during a portion. Curious how thisll effect future remote runs.

Suprak the Stud posted...

We just had a run deleted from the GDQ YouTube channel because of confirmed cheating during a portion. Curious how thisll effect future remote runs.

can you share any more details?

https://www.pcgamesn.com/metal-gear-rising-revengeance/sgdq-fake

Yeah I dont know if Para wants to know or not so I was keeping it vague but

Metal Gear Revengence runner used pre recorded footage for his DLC incentive. Spliced it together to make it look like he got WR. He got caught because of his hand movements not matching including a segment where he wasnt touching the keyboard during gameplay. Admitted it on his discord.

Kinda hard to keep it vague when the literal video is gone.

Oh duh yeah good point.

Stupid thing to do during one of the most watched live speedrunning events regardless, but it's extra baffling since he was already the WR holder and didn't (presumably) cheat at the much longer run.

Mario Sunshine I understand people are being nice but it really makes me uncomfortable listening to the commentators baby the runner so much after his death. desperately need someone to make fun of him to break the ice

Rolled Out!

The first game this run I haven't heard of! Helix ran a really great Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz run last AGDQ so it's great to see them running this Monkey Ball clone, and damn it really is a Monkey Ball clone - every aspect of it seems designed to give pretty much the same experience, just with the serial numbers filed off - and a few new gimmicks as well. I was pretty impressed by the game, for starters - the gravity gimmick in world 2 was super awesome and the portals later on were weird and interesing too. The run, of course, is just really solid. There isn't a whole lot more to say than that. Helix executed it well, although not perfectly (one level took a lot of attempts to get through), and kept the commentary fun throughout. Just a good run of a game that deserves some publicity; it's actually really cool to see that they gave it a primetime spot with all the other heavy hitters instead of relegating it to the late night slots. I think the Monkey Ball crew have really garnered a lot of respect over the years.

I feel like, for runs like this of an unfamiliar game, I end up talking about the game itself more than any aspect of the run. But Monkey Ball - or a clone of it, in this case - is one of those runs where it's a long series of modular levels instead of an adventure with a lot of different stuff to talk about, so there's not much to say except that Helix rolled the ball good. That type of run could overstay its welcome, but this one does not. It's about as long as it should be, and I'd rather it be longer than shorter, which is good.

- All of the game's six playable characters are they/them except for one, and I don't know which one I would have expected to be she/her, but it definitely wasn't this bizarre chess creature that they play throughout the run.

- Lots of cool features in this game. It has a minimap! Do any of the SMB games have a minimap?

- Really cool, chill soundtrack in this one which I wasn't expecting - less frantic than most of the Monkey Ball games. Apparently @Toxtricity had something to do with the music in this game? That's extremely awesome if so! I trust their music tastes a lot.

- The announcer saying START or GET ROLLIN' or whatever instead of GO really throws me off though, especially since they sound so much like the Monkey Ball announcer.

- "I'm gonna lose my mind." "Your marbles?" "Yeah you're right."

- They said they were gonna use the focus meter at some point way later in the run, and if they ever used it I totally missed it so I still have no idea what it did.

Mass Effect

I do actually have experience with Mass Effect, although it's been many, many years. I haven't played it since 2008 or so, but it turns out that Mass Effect is an incredibly memorable game, because I feel like I remember most of what happens in it (some of the plot recaps helped though). Wasn't sure what to expect out of this run - 1h 30m definitely implies that some fuckery is going to happen, but I wasn't sure how much fuckery because I've never seen a Mass Effect speedrun before and I have no idea how broken the game is.

The answer is - a fairly significant amount of fuckery, although the game mostly does get played normally. On a scale from 1-5, where 1 is glitchless and 5 is wrong warping to the credits, this is about a 3.5 or a 4 - most of the game's objectives are completed in a roughly normal order with a bit of sequence breaking, there aren't any HUGE portions of the game skipped entirely, but there's a ton of cutscene skips and out of bounds galore, which makes this run super fun. Although I prefer to play glitchless runs when it comes to speedrunning games myself (glitches can just be so hard and annoying to perform and don't feel fun to do), when it comes to a showcase like this, I love a glitchy run, showcasing what happens when you break the game as much as it can be broken. And so far, on that glitchiness scale, this is the first run that's glitchier than a 2, which makes this the most fun run of the marathon so far for me. I also just like runs of adventure games where there's strategizing to the macro-level routing and you get to see things pay off later in the run.

Great commentary throughout this entire run, and it's well paced without a whole lot of boring downtime, aside from a few terminally boring Mako sections that you can't do anything about. The combat in ME isn't the most interesting to watch and it's hard to tell what's going on, but they explain most of it well enough that it's easy to follow. But the out of bounds stuff is the real star of the show here.

- "You're gonna see me blowing myself up with a grenade to put myself in combat just so I can run." This is the original version of the game rather than the Legendary remake, and in this you can only run if you're considered 'in combat', which doing damage to yourself can trigger. I love stuff like this.

- This run almost IMMEDIATELY begins with what feels like a surprisingly easy out of bounds that skips a bunch of the first mission. Nihlus lives! (Not really)

- I also love the glitched cutscenes that happen as a result of not getting certain characters. We don't pick up Ashley early on so we're just talking to nobody. Sadly, we do get Ashley later.

- Speaking of which, Garrus and Wrex are never recruited in this run, which is bullshit. We do get Tali at least though (and Liara much later).

- "There's an important shot right here, gone but not forgotten in Legendary edition, and that'll be in just a moment here, right... now." And it's a shot of cleavage, of course. It's a good cleavage shot, I admit.

- "We're gonna go talk to Joker, played by Seth Green. RIP to his apes."

- The Citadel is so awesome, so it's really a shame that most of it gets skipped in this run. Oh well!

- I enjoyed the glitched cutscene where you get a cutscene to play while you're in the pause menu and the subtitles come up.

- When you're the captain of the Normandy, you don't just walk into the Normandy. You do a quicksave/quickload, fall through the top of the skybox and the entire planet, and crash through the Normandy's ceiling, completely skipping talking to everybody. That's the kind of privilege you get being the captain.

- We end up in the skybox a lot this run.

- I enjoy the runner/commentators apologizing for the fact that they have to do renegade options throughout a lot of this run just because it's faster most of the time. Poor Rachni queen!

- The Mako "controls like an RC car" and "is a bouncy castle on wheels" and that sounds about right based on my memory and my experience watching this run. There's really only this one difficult Mako section in this run, but it's something. Love the part where they get it through the narrow section it's not supposed to go and it just barely has enough maneuverability to get through everything else.

- There's a sort-of-softlock glitch at one point where Femshep just randomly turns into Broshep. I don't see this as a problem; we stan a transmasc king. Yeah, all your abilities drop to level 1 and you can't do anything, but that's just how transitioning goes.

- Riding a box out of bounds like Silver the Hedgehog was probably my favorite trick of the run. It just sort of... works? It's barely even a glitch, they intended for you to pick up a box and move it around, although probably did not intend for you to be riding it at the time. I like that they level up Liara and bring her basically JUST for this one trick (it doesn't feel like she does a ton in combat since they have an awesome pistol by this point).

- The game ends with one of the few paragon options saving the council after a mostly renegade run, which is funny.

- There's a Mako glitch exhibition at the end and it's comic gold. It's a great cap to my first "highly recommended" run of the marathon.

- I feel guilty that I have so much more to say about a run like this than others but I guess that's natural, it's the longest and most involved run so far.

---Highly Recommended---
Mass Effect
---Recommended---
Shadow of the Colossus
Rolled Out!
---Maybe Recommended---
WarioWare: Touched!
---Not Recommended---
Sonic Generations

I will be skipping Kirby and the Forgotten Land for now, but I WILL come back to it once I've beaten the game, which will definitely be before I finish this project. Pokemon Snap will be next.

so far he did
https://youtube.com/watch?v=LdmiafeggRw
https://youtube.com/watch?v=0wKNKe4Dd5k
https://soundcloud.com/chimeratio/vortex?in=baycunn/sets/rolled-out-ost

all three of the composers of the game are nuts. also check out baycunn and dvi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_W6sP6yHAs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx6Hdg1QTJY

Rolled Out was one of my favorite runs that never seemed to make it into the top runs recaps Ive seen. I always like Monkey Ball runs though. Weirdly bouncing off obstacles to fly halfway across the level and somehow make it into the goal is always A+ stuff for me haha.

This was one of two games I also bought after watching the run.

i loved rolled out because it was a chance for the audience to clap and gasp and cheer

Paratroopa1 posted...

Apparently @Toxtricity had something to do with the music in this game? That's extremely awesome if so! I trust their music tastes a lot.

whoa, really? i should watch this.

i should also listen to the soundtrack of this game because tox is legitimately one of my favorite VGM composers.

re-tag

By the way I did actually end up beating Kirby to the point that the run goes to, so now I can watch it next unspoiled, which I will likely do tomorrow. No skipping around for me!

(I did start Tunic also)

Kirby and the Forgotten Land

I played this game specifically in preparation to watch this run - I was going to skip it at first but instead I ended up taking a couple days off to beat it, so here I am! I'm really glad I played this game. I think this might be my favorite Kirby game ever; it feels like the first time they've ever made a Kirby game on a Mario budget, if that makes sense. A top of the line, prestige game meant to flex Nintendo's muscles and not just a solidly made, mid-budget title meant to fill the back end of a console's lineup in its waning days. It's amazing that this is the first time they've ever made a mainline 3D Kirby game! Anyway, most of the gushing about this game is probably best reserved for "Para's top 50 games 2022-2023" or whatever.

Anyway, I was really excited about this run because it's a game I really enjoyed that's super fresh in my brain, and throughout I was noticing all sort of potential speed things that would be fun. I was excited to see how Fire and Tornado would be used for movement and I was excited to see how quickly bosses would be killed (I already noticed that no-copy Kirby insanely powerful and I was right about that). I didn't expect there to be out of bounds glitches though, so this run managed to surprise.

I did kind of frame this list as an objective one - the runs I would recommend to other people, rather than merely my favorites - but it is a favorites list, really. I'm definitely biased towards certain games that I really like, and while some runs of games I don't know will occasionally really grip me, this is definitely my favorite run of the marathon so far. I'm a sucker for long adventure games where there's planning and routing and payoff, and Kirby has a lot of that with deciding what powers to carry, which Waddle Dees to save, when to buy items, etc. And otherwise this was just such a fun, cozy showcase of a new game that's sure to be part of the speedrunning canon, and I'm sure it's gonna be a highlight for me.

- One of the first things I noticed playing this game was that slide kicking and jump canceling out of it was a lot faster than walking, so I did it a lot when I played. Happy to see that I was not wrong and the speedrun has to start with this until it gets Fire/Tornado.

- It's nice to see no-copy Kirby get to shine throughout this run. As fun as copy powers are, I've always felt it's a bit of a shame that Kirby's gimmick of inhaling and spitting things out gets sidelined so often, since it's a lot of fun itself, but because of the way this game works with giving you lots of stars to work with it's an insanely powerful ability. The mix of powers and inhaling that has to be used in this run is really awesome.

- This run does start a little slow, with the first 5-10 minutes or so being really straightforward and not involving a lot of routing decisions, but it gets more interesting later on. Almost no Waddle Dees are saved early on which leaves a lot of the level unexplored, but in later levels it's more interesting because they have to spend time routing Waddle Dees in which makes the levels more dynamic and interesting.

- I like that despite not being a super speed-heavy game there's a lot of movement tech. There's a lot of slight mistakes that get made into impressive backup strats to make cycles.

- It's hilarious how many things in this game I didn't know about until I watched this run. I didn't know you could take the invincibility candy all the way to Frosty in Alivel Mall. I didn't know you could guard with ice to kill bosses quickly. I didn't even know there was a stage select!

- "Please do not greet birds by flamethrowering them."

- Stuff you can do to save time in this game: Eating a single can of tuna, so that the game does not spend two seconds giving you a hint about eating cans of tuna.

- "For me, I love sleep. (Audience applauds) "Yeah, deep sleep is so good!" (Audience applauds louder)

- Everyone raves about Wondaria Remains and all the lore behind it and I agree, it's the best themed world with the coolest environments. Speaking of which, another speedrunning thing I love about this game is how often Kirby can jump on objects to get enough height to skip over things. Since this game is such a love letter to urban exploration in abandoned places, there's something very meta about being able to parkour off of objects in a way that's neither specifically intended nor disallowed.

- Tornado movement in this game is so satisfying, and I love how much it can skip by covering tons of horizontal distance.

- "I like the ring mouth because I have a very close friend who hates it and I'm desperate to get them a figurine of that for their birthday."

- "I love how Elfilin was willing to tell you about a blueprint you left behind, but a caged Waddle Dee? That's not a priority."

- Invasion at the House of Horrors is, indeed, the best level in the game, and I'm sad they blow by it so quickly (using the patented speedrunning technique of Not Using The Provided Light Source In A Dark Area Because You Know Where Everything Is Already).

- Swallowing all the swords against Clawroline, another thing I didn't know you could do. It's really funny that you have to turn auto-powers off, because otherwise you'd gain the Sword power here - turning that feature off completely changes the nature of this fight.

- A shame how many attempts the Blizzard Bridge skip takes, but I love when there's high stakes at a GDQ run - it makes it all the more exciting when someone does pull off a difficult trick first time, and I love the nervous feeling of not knowing if someone is going to succeed. Amazing that skip even works, it's such a bizarre glitch and there's no reason for there to even be collision up there.

- They, like me, note the raw intensity of the name THE WASTES WERE LIFE BEGAN. ("It's just a normal desert level, that's the weird part")

- "Are you telling me this game has OPTIMAL SLEEPING?" This is probably the first Kirby game where obtaining the Sleep power is optimal speedrunning tech! (I love that world 5 has a lot more Waddle Dee routing)

- I have never heard of tiger stripe ice cream, but orange ice cream with licorice swirls sounds absolutely terrible. Everyone else picked normal, sensible favorite ice cream flavors, and then my guy over here with the absolute most deranged thing I've ever heard.

- I don't know if I love or hate that this game has a technique called "instant suck."

- World 6 is just great in general, I made a lot of notes like 'wow' or 'cool' but I'm not gonna repeat them all. Unfortunate that he dropped a Waddle Dee mission late though and had to repeat a level to make it up - I wondered what would happen if he missed a Waddle Dee like this, and the answer when it's the last Waddle Dee of the run is, gotta redo a level!

- "I unlocked something? Oh, fishing!"

- Leongar skip was really cool! Actually got that one more-or-less first try.

- "This game has a fear rating just because of that boss I'm pretty sure." If you played the game, you know.

- "The Wastes Where Life Began" can't even begin to compare to the title of the boss theme, "Two Planets Approach the Roche Limit." I love how extra Kirby always is.

- For some reason, there's a sliding mechanic where Kirby slides down a hill and it's only ever used in a hard to find easter egg room. I wonder if it was planned to be used somewhere else at one point.

That was a long run to have out of the way! I guess it's natural that I'll have more stuff to talk about for a run like this.

I'm also waiting on watching the Kirby run until I play the game. BUT I've heard good things!

From this topic.

Right now.

(And other places too, I guess)

Pokemon Snap

This was another run I was majorly looking forward to - Pokemon Snap's another nostalgic favorite of mine that I haven't really revisited that often recently, and I'm interested in seeing what goes into speedrunning high scores out of it.

Some of the very minor manipulations you have to do to go fast in this game are pretty interesting; always trying to look forward so your vehicle doesn't slow down, lag manipulation, planning your routes so that you have to run through each level the fewest times possible, getting some shots from some pretty funny angles. It wasn't QUITE as compelling as I hoped, since the game is pretty short and most of the Pokemon are pretty straightforward to get - a lot of the pictures aren't even very good because if they're too good they take up more time! Still, though, it's worth it for what interesting manips do exist. And I love the goal here - I think it's so much more interesting to need a good score at the end than simply getting to the end.

- I love that SNOM was the winning filename. Snom is a good Pokemon. The donors are good people.

- This is probably a topic for another time - like say, a best games list - but I just love the late 90's Pokemon aesthetics. There's something special about it that's just not the same anymore, and I can't explain it. We were cleaning out the basement earlier this week and we found some vintage Pokemon merch, including an unopened pack of gen 1-era stickers, and I'm just so excited and happy about it.

- You go slower when you look backwards, so you always want to be looking forwards. What a positive message!

- The first level is almost entirely looking at the sky. Thrilling!

- Second reference to orbs this GDQ. I feel like there's stuff I should keep tallies of like this.

- Bad Cloyster rng. He's the one Pokemon that ruins this run. Booooo, Cloyster.

- The river is my favorite level in this run - he does it in one go and there's just so many quick pictures that have to be taken in quick succession with good accuracy.

- I love the Doduo snipe at the start of the return to the beach level - just knowing where it's going to be and hitting it as soon as it comes out.

- "You didn't see them because of lag reduction, but trust me, they were there, and it was cool."

- There was a warning not to look at the screen because of motion sickness, but I thought it was going to be a warning not to look at the screen because of Jynx.

- The single best picture in this run is the one of Pikachu riding on Articuno, where we clip through Articuno and get a picture of Pikachu showing off its taint. Beautiful. No further comments.

---Highly Recommended---
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Mass Effect
---Recommended---
Shadow of the Colossus
Rolled Out!
Pokemon Snap
---Maybe Recommended---
WarioWare: Touched!
---Not Recommended---
Sonic Generations

Spyro the Dragon

These are the types of runs where I know I'm going to run into a bit of a problem; runs of games that are definitely a lot more nostalgic for other people, but not for me. Spyro is a tricky one - the game moves really fast, but because so much of it is just running from point A to point B it feels a little slow at first until you really understand the rhythm of the game and what the player is trying to do. I'm sure it's immediately a lot more relatable for someone who has played the game, but that's not me! Nontheless, I did still enjoy this one, and I'd recommend it.

- Dayoman is very high on energy, and I was very low on energy watching this. It was a bit of a mismatch. He seems like an absolutely lovely person and I enjoyed his run a lot, but he does talk a mile a minute sometimes!

- "This game came out at the same time as Resident Evil, let that sink in as far as movement is concerned." An incredibly good point - this was an early era PS1 game, at a time when 3D movement was... uh, still a bit experimental. I've never played this game but I'm sure the controls are a bit of experience, so movement is probably a lot harder than it looks.

- Most of this run I just kind of let wash over me. Speedruns like this are kind of a weird paradox - there's absolutely no downtime here, but that lack of downtime means I'm never really able to get my bearings and understand what's going on.

- I think it's interesting how he describes this game as having no human ceiling, and I think that's more or less probably true. There's SO many incredibly tiny movement optimizations throughout this entire run that nailing them all in sequence would be impossible; any run of this game is going to have tiny, inconsequential errors that add up. At one point he sort of alludes this to being like a racing game and I think that's a fascinating comparison; it's all about taking the shortest lines possible, cutting corners and turning at precise angles, etc.

- It's also absolutely true what he said about how my primary experience watching this game is thinking "oh no, did he really grab that gem or not?" Of course, he always has an extremely good awareness of his pickup radius at all times and whether or not he got them, but it's like basically constantly on my mind.

- They talk a lot about other Spyro games in this and I'm just totally not privy to these conversations. I kinda tuned out for parts of this run.

- I think it's sweet how wholesome this run is. Dayoman's mom is proud of him! The couch is proud of him! It's really nice.

- "When was the last time you used Skype?" It always blows my mind to remember that there was a time when we had to use Skype, or Mumble, or whatever to chat instead of Discord. Ever since the mid-10's Discord has just really replaced all of that.

- I keep forgetting that Stewart Copeland wrote this game's soundtrack. What the fuck?

- "Thank you for releasing me" is a good meme.

- GDQ out of context: "When you hit that wizard just right, he gets squished."

- A tech name called T-N-Trick. Not sure if they made that one up on the spot!

- Damn, another major missed skip, which is a bummer. Been a lot of those so far! Again, though, I do love these high-stakes skips.

- Someone is here in a Spyro costume. It's adorable.

- "If we have time I'd love to show off credits skip? Do we have a minute - we do not." I always feel bad when a runner has to get yanked off the stage like this, but it was the right call - he was already over estimate.

- There's a prize segment after this one. Sent's on the floor.

- "Can I interest you in this love Pikachu? It goes lovely with this lovely crocheted Dittochu. It's like a Pikachu. Or is it." The way he delivers this line is inexplicably funny in a way I can't describe, you just have to hear it.

- Cool prizes I can't have as usual. Love the Sleep Kirby quilt and the Spyro perler + painting is an incredibly cool mixed art piece.

Perfect Dark

Another game I have not played! This will be a short writeup, my apologies - some of them are going to be like that because I basically just watched the run and went, ok, that was fine but I didn't have a lot to say.

I think FPS runs, especially older ones (pre-Halo 1 or so) are really tricky to watch for a couple of reasons. One, the forced perspective means it's really hard to get a good understanding of the level design and where the objectives are if you don't know the game well. Two, it's hard to appreciate how much danger the player is actually in - there's a lot of damage tanking in this game that doesn't slow you down at all and I can't really tell how close to death they are. Most other games it's kind of clear how bad it is to get hit, especially since it usually at least slows you down.

As a result, this run isn't really for me. But I'm sure you'll enjoy it if you know the game! I'll compromise a little bit in my rankings with this one.

- This game DOES start off with two different out of bounds clips in the first 45 seconds, though, which I appreciate greatly. Can't be all bad with that.

- At first I was surprised by how high def this was for an N64 game, but then I realized it was the 360 remaster. Does make things easier to see, at least, and the framerate's probably a lot better too.

- Gotta push Jonathan because Jonathan is too slow. Fuck you Jonathan.

- GDQ out of context: "We have to kill the guards so Elvis doesn't kill them." I would watch the movie Elvis if it turned out the twist is that Elvis Presley was a serial killer.

- "This guy has a 50/50 chance to notice you or not notice you."

- "And last but not least, we want to get over this bridge-" "Please die, please die, please die!" "...without dying, preferrably."

- Apparently Elvis has a 1 in 50 chance to just randomly die to an enemy that isn't even spawned in the level, and that's exactly what happened. Oops!

- A classic pause-buffered kidnapping. I like all the npc pushing you have to do in this run.

Have you watched runs of Spyro or Perfect Dark before?